


Thank You, Come Again

by furiosity



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: AoKaga Day, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-30 07:52:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10872423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furiosity/pseuds/furiosity
Summary: Many years after high school, Aomine Daiki, Proper Adult, walks into a burger joint.





	Thank You, Come Again

**Author's Note:**

> Err, hi! I'm back, sort of. These two have been on my mind a lot since I watched the LAST GAME movie and then it was AoKaga Day, and, well. I'm a bit out of practice, but I hope you enjoy. <3

"Get those pallets out of the aisle," Aomine yelled over his shoulder. "The Yokozawa truck is here; driver's behind schedule."

"Where are you going?" Ueda yelled back, steering his forklift to the blocked aisle.

"He forgot the invoice at the office, so they're faxing it over."

Ueda grunted an acknowledgment and rode away. Aomine made his way to the back, stepped out of his steel-toes, and shut the door on the noise and clangour of the warehouse floor.

"Yo, Sakae," he called out to the receptionist as he walked down the corridor to the front office. "Is there a fax from Yokozawa?"

"I put it in your tray," she said as he rounded the corner. "He forgot the invoice again, didn't he?"

"You know it," Aomine said, pausing by the water cooler to pour himself a paper cupful. "Any news from the front?"

"Nope, there's still a potato shortage and no one knows when things are going back to normal. But Katamoto-san did find an amazing American restaurant yesterday. She said she sent you the address."

Aomine cast a glance towards the men's changing rooms. "I'll check it after my shift. Sounds like we've got plans for tonight, then? You rounding up the others?"

She shook her head with a smile. "My oldest has his first sports day tomorrow, so I've got to call it an early night."

"Next week, then," Aomine said, grabbed the invoice he'd come for, and went back out to the warehouse.

~

A soft breeze ruffled Aomine's hair as he stepped out of the subway station. The rain had stopped, and the air smelled like spring again. And now he didn't have to sprint to Family Mart to buy an umbrella for the twenty-minute walk home. _I should really buy a bike,_ he thought, pulling out his phone as he turned into a narrow side street. 

His messages contained a bunch of spam from his provider, a funny forward from his mom, and Katamoto's e-mail with a map ping for that new restaurant. _Amazing burgers,_ the subject line said. Aomine tapped the link to open it in Maps, then tapped Directions, and the route was 1 minute by car, 5 minutes on foot.

_Why not?_ Aomine thought. There was nothing to eat at home except a bag of broccoli in his freezer and a package of sliced bacon in his fridge that was probably past its expiration date. Not that _that_ had ever stopped him before.

Still, an American restaurant this close to his place, and he’d never even heard of it? Must have been pretty new. The phone navigation system told him to turn left, left, right, then left again, and then he was at his destination.

Except there wasn’t a restaurant anywhere -- this was a residential street like any other: low stone fences, perennials landscaped within an inch of their lives, tiled roofs, carpet-wrapped utility poles, and white lines on the sides of the pavement.

He swiped back to his messages and hit Reply. _Where the hell’s this restaurant? It’s just houses._

Aomine stared at the _mail sent_ notification at the top of his screen and wondered if he should even bother waiting for a response. It was Friday night; Katamoto was probably out with her boyfriend.

A door opened upstairs in the house directly in front of him, the one covered in thick ivy.

“Thank you for the meal!” a man said, cheerful.

“Thank you for coming! Take care on your way home!” An older woman’s voice, warm but all business. 

As the man who’d spoken descended the steep staircase and walked out the house gate, Aomine took a closer look at the sigh next to the gate – it had looked like a nameplate to him so he hadn’t paid it any mind at first. It read _Mirror_ in English. Aomine was no English genius, but he was pretty sure that wasn’t a person’s name.

He pushed the gate open and walked up the stairs. The door up there had a proper wooden WELCOME board on a hook, and Aomine pushed it open.

“Welcome!” the woman from earlier – a plump foreigner, fiftyish– called out. “Oh, a new face! Please, come in!”

The place was so tiny that Aomine was surprised he hadn’t needed to duck in the doorway. Four tables were crammed so close together, people would need to budge up to let others pass between. Three of the tables were occupied: a family of four, three salarymen, and an old woman with pigtails, all tucking into platefuls. It smelled like heaven, but Aomine hated cramped spaces. People – including Katamoto – didn’t know that about him. 

As he turned to leave, a curtain to his right slid aside, filling the air with an even thicker scent of frying meat and caramelised onions.

“Are we out of garlic?” asked Kagami, then looked at Aomine with an apologetic expression. “Oh, I’m sorry, sir—wait, I _remember_ you.”

Aomine hadn’t needed the double take; he’d recognised Kagami instantly, even though he’d stopped following his career more than eight years ago. He’d heard people say that unfulfilled crushes never really went away, that they waited to resurface at the next possible time. He hadn’t believed it until now.

“Ao—mori?” Kagami ventured, his brow furrowed.

“Aomine,” Aomine said, annoyed.

“Right, I’m sorry. It’s been a minute, hasn’t it? You gonna try the food?”

Aomine wanted desperately to stay, but the only open seat was right next to Elderly Pigtails and a mouthy gradeschooler, so that just wasn’t happening. He began to shake his head, but Kagami put an arm around his shoulders and shoved him through the curtain.

“Of course you’re gonna try the food, it’s amazing. Come on. There’s a VIP table in the back, right next to all the good stuff.”

~

“All that time, though, I missed Japan too damn much. So my retirement plan was always to come back here and open up a place like this.”

Aomine swallowed another mouthful of imported beer, feeling it seep into the precious few open spaces left in his stomach. He hadn’t eaten this well in a century. He’d spent the evening on a stylish leather sofa in a little alcove next to Kagami’s kitchen, watching Kagami prepare food for him plus an unending stream of customers, listening to Kagami talk about his life in the US, about how different the big time was from the other side of the mirror. Now, the place was closed, and Aomine knew he needed to leave, but he didn’t want to.

Kagami took off his apron, tossed it in a hamper by the freezer, and sat down next to him, beer stein in hand. “You haven’t been saying much about you.”

Aomine shrugged. “Not much to say.” His heart picked up pace as Kagami settled in next to him. Kagami smelled like a well-used kitchen, of refried oil and spices, and it made Aomine think of home – his family home, not the empty apartment he went back to every night.

“You know, for the first couple of years after I went pro, I thought about you a lot.”

“You thought about me so much you forgot my name, huh?”

“Shut up, I said I was sorry. I just—I thought you’d come over to the States for sure. You were so driven.”

“Things change,” Aomine said. He’d never thought he’d have this conversation with anyone else, ever again, and he wasn’t sure he was up to it. Basketball was in the past.

Kagami gulped down the rest of his beer. “That they do.”

“I should go,” Aomine said, rising. “Thanks, Kagami.”

“Give me your phone number,” Kagami said. “Let’s hang out tomorrow.”

Aomine bit his lip. “Pretty sure your wife won’t want you hanging out with someone like me. You’re gonna have the press here as soon as someone else recognises you, plus this place is gonna get all the Michelin stars in the world. I’m just some guy you knew in high school. She’ll tell you not to waste your time.”

“Don’t be an idiot. You thought Aunt Tammy’s my _wife_?”

“ _Aunt_ Tammy?”

“Yeah, she’s my mom’s older sister. From another dad.”

“Still a family establishment, huh?” Aomine said with a grin, turning to leave. Just because Kagami wasn’t married didn’t make him available, not in the way Aomine wanted. 

Kagami got up and followed him to the door. 

“About that phone number,” Kagami said as Aomine zipped up his windbreaker.

“I’ll be honest,” Aomine said. “I have a crush on you, but it’ll never happen, and I’m not real big on pining.”

Kagami blushed, and Aomine’s life was over. “I’m not real big on saying never.”

“Fucking hell. Give me your phone.”

~

“So you two are dating?” Satsuki asked. “Airi, no, mom’s on the phone right now.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Aomine said.

“You’ve gone out with him every weekend for the past two months, Dai-chan.”

“So?”

“So we’re not in high school.”

_So I keep telling myself, but I sure as hell feel like a highschooler._ He grunted. He wasn’t going to explain to Satsuki that the past two months involved a lot of going out, as in going out to eat, to the movies, to a dance club, to several Nicho bars, to the goddamn planetarium. They didn’t involve any other things people did when they were dating, and Aomine was pretty sure that Kagami just wasn’t into him but didn’t want to hurt his feelings, after talking so big about not saying never and shit.

_It’s gone on long enough._ If he kept spending time with Kagami, he was gonna keep falling for him. Better end it now, while it would still only hurt a little.

“I’m gonna stop seeing him,” he told Satsuki.

“Wha-a-a-t? How on earth did you get there from—Airi! No! Sorry, Dai-chan, she’s gotten herself stuck in the laundry basket, I need to go.”

After Aomine hung up with Satsuki, he dialled Kagami.

“Hey.”

“Hey. What’s going on?”

“Nothing, what are you up to right now?”

“Just got off the phone with my accountant. She wants me to start opening the restaurant on weekends because it would make the profits even bigger.”

“Are you gonna do it?”

“Hell no, I didn’t retire to be a workaholic.”

“So you’re not busy. Can I come over?”

“To the shop?”

“To your place.” Kagami’s place was downstairs in the same house, but Aomine wanted to be clear.

“Er…sure.”

The hesitation made Aomine’s jaw clench. “If you don’t want me there, just fucking say so.”

Seething, Aomine ended the call and threw the phone onto his bed. What the hell was he doing? Why couldn’t he handle this like a goddamn adult? It was stupid, getting angry at Kagami for something Kagami couldn’t help.

A short while later, his phone rang. It was Kagami. Aomine ignored it for a full fifteen seconds until he couldn’t any more.

“Hey.”

“I’m downstairs. I don’t know your apartment number.”

Aomine’s heart began to pound. “510.”

A second later, his doorbell chimed, and he buzzed Kagami in.

“What the hell was that about?” Kagami asked as soon as the apartment door shut behind him.

Aomine handed him a pair of slippers. “Don’t worry about it. Want a beer?”

“I biked here,” Kagami said, frowning. “Don’t change the subject.”

“No chance of you staying the night, huh?” Aomine was so goddamn happy about Kagami rushing over here, he’d almost forgotten that he wanted to pick a fight.

“I—what?”

Aomine stepped in closer and pushed Kagami back against the wall. “I’m asking if you want to sleep here. With me.”

Kagami’s face turned red. “Ao—“

Aomine put a hand over his mouth. “You don’t have to pretend. I get it, Kagami, you’re a nice guy. You feel like you promised me something back when we first saw each other again, but you can’t deliver, ‘cause you just don’t like me in that way.”

Kagami’s eyebrows drew together, but Aomine wasn’t finished. “Stop trying. Stop waiting for something to change. It won’t. Let’s end this now, before... before--”

With a grunt, Kagami grabbed Aomine’s arm and forced Aomine’s hand away from his mouth. Then he leaned in and kissed Aomine, _really_ kissed him, slick, hot tongue pushing past Aomine’s teeth, lapping into him, soft against Aomine’s tongue, then hard against the roof of his mouth. Kagami moaned, grabbed fistfuls of Aomine’s jeans, and pulled him in close, dick hard against Aomine’s inner thigh. “Fuck me,” he whispered against Aomine’s lips. “Do me till I can’t walk.”

“Kagami, what--?” Not that Aomine had any _complaints_ here, but this was bordering on some Jekyll  & Hyde shit. Kagami’s eyes flashed, and Aomine’s knees felt weak.

“Shut up,” Kagami advised, unbuttoning Aomine’s shirt up to his navel, then moving on to his jeans. Before Aomine could process, Kagami was on his knees with Aomine’s dick in his mouth, and Aomine forgot about everything except Kagami.

~

“So... why didn’t we do this earlier?” Aomine asked after they’d spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on at least some of the sex they didn’t have up until then.

Kagami blushed. “Because I—you saw how I got. I get too into it, and it’s embarrassing. I—I wanted to talk to you about it, but I didn’t want you to think I was weird.”

“I already think you’re weird,” Aomine said. “You’re a famous NBA player and you’re running a burger joint in suburban Tokyo. Doesn’t get much weirder than that.”

“Shut up,” Kagami muttered into the crook of Aomine’s neck. “Wanna get me that beer?”

Aomine sat up and looked around for his underpants. “Can’t let you drink and ride your bike home, man, them’s the breaks.”

Kagami grinned. “I could just walk home. But I’m staying.”

“One beer, coming right up.”

[end]


End file.
